Exploring the Perceived Barriers to Innovativeness: Views of Turkish Pre-Service Teachers as Technology Leaders

Abstract

In the new millennium, the value of innovation increases in global scale and innovation is regarded as the key to development and a pivotal element of making a difference. With the significant increase in the number of technological innovations in recent years, resulting in shorter times for adoption of innovations, individual innovativeness became a necessity, thus giving responsibility to educators generally. This research was conducted with the intent of the detection of perceived barriers to innovativeness by pre-service teachers as technology leaders. The research was conducted with 777 fourth-grade students studying in the Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) departments of 26 public universities in Turkey. As a result of the research, it was found out that pre-service teachers see institutional factors as the greatest barrier to innovativeness and regard the process of learning in educational institutions as more of a barrier than technological infrastructure and corporation culture.